


and his mind is filled with hopeless dreams

by TheRangress



Series: you should have told me (but you had to bleed to know) [1]
Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: M/M, Post-Oathbringer, major Oathbringer spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 16:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12752211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRangress/pseuds/TheRangress
Summary: He could have done more for Renarin. Now he's filled with guilt, and it's Kaladin who needs.





	and his mind is filled with hopeless dreams

“So you’re a Voidbringer,” Kaladin said.

Renarin looked up from where he had made a blanket-wrapped lump of himself. Speaking and thinking had both sounded like bad ideas. Being a lump? Very appealing.

“Not a Voidbringer,” he said, voice wavering. “I’m something… else.”

 _Come on, Glys._ He needed Kaladin to trust him again, if that could ever be regained— if he’d ever had it in the first place. He mentally nudged his spren a few more times. Glys was, perhaps, even more anxious and self-conscious than Renarin himself.

He had a right to that.

At last, red glow poked from beneath the blanket, just like Renarin’s head. The slightest bit of crystalline spren entered view, then ducked away in an instant.

Kaladin was silent, but he sat at Renarin’s side. “Syl?” he asked, softly.

“It’s weird.” She appeared as a windspren, whipping around Renarin and Glys a few times before taking form as a girl on Kaladin’s shoulder. “I feel… both? Something familiar that I knew, but—”

“You’re hurting his feelings,” he blurted out. “He knows what he is, Brightness.”

Syl was silent for a moment. “Some of my kind might call me defective too.” Her words were gentle. “Or, well, at least this one here.” On that she nudged at Kaladin, who rolled his eyes. “I’m pleased to meet you, Glys.”

Syl wasn’t defective. Syl was a perfect honorspren, and Kaladin a perfect Windrunner. But it was enough to make Glys poke his light out once again.

Renarin pulled his blanket a little tighter around himself. “I’m the same as I’ve always been, I suppose.” He managed to keep his words light and cheerful. “Something wrong. A Highprince’s son who couldn’t fight, a clever boy with no desire to be an ardent, a lighteyed bridgeman, a Radiant who tastes of Odium. Even my name is wrong. Did you know that?”

“I…”

“You, born unto eternity. My brother, born unto light. Me— re, nar, in. Born unto, being born like… Myself. It’s Riran. My blood, my hair, my name— all of two. No wonder my spren would be of two as well.”

He looked at Renarin, head tilted.

“My mother named me,” he said, wondering if he should be shutting up instead. “She wanted to name me after my father, and I suppose she didn’t like Redalin.”

Kaladin nodded, slowly. “It’s a good name.”

Renarin shut up.

“I mean,” he said, still unbearably slow, “I suppose having two suffixes is unfortunate, but… you were born into being yourself. Not a Highprince’s son, or an ardent, or a lighteyes… or a flawed Radiant. Merely yourself.”

“I never cared for being myself.” No. Glys agreed, that wasn’t right. Renarin straightened slightly, and corrected himself. “I never was myself until today. Today, I was… free.”

He looked up, and saw Kaladin was in tears.

“Did— is it a bridgeman?”

“Of course it’s a bridgeman.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m crying for you, Renarin.”

Again, he was struck utterly dumb.

“I forgot you,” Kaladin continued, tears still running silently down his face. “In all of this, I never stopped to think— where is Renarin? How is he doing? I was so focused on what it meant to have Bridge Four as my squires, as Windrunners. Damnation, I’ve been trying to care for all of Roshar, human and Parshendi and Voidbringer— and I forgot you.”

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

“That’s why I shouldn’t have.” The tears were getting worse, turning to sniffs. To see Kaladin Stormblessed so fragile? Nearly _sobbing?_ “You shouldn’t have borne any of this alone, but we all thought… I thought you were stronger than me. I never thought of how it is only strength that lets a man hide his burdens.” Kaladin let out, at last, a muffled sob. “And you are so, so strong.”

Renarin could think only to wrap his blanket around Kaladin, pull the weeping captain into his lap and hold him as Adolin would. “You had more important matters to attend to.”

“Not always,” he said, hair soft beneath Renarin’s fingers. “Did I speak to you _once_ since we found Urithiru? I could have listened to the artifabrians with you. I could have asked how Bridge Four would include a Truthwatcher. I could have asked you if you wanted to hold the Honorblade and know the skies. Storm it, Renarin— _how did I forget you_ _?"_

“I wanted you to,” said Renarin. His voice was threadbare. “I wanted everyone to forget me. I always have. If I could not have glory, _better to be forgotten."_

Today he had glory, and suddenly Renarin found his own eyes wet.

“You’re Bridge Four,” Kaladin said. Renarin was rubbing at his shoulders, trying to soothe each little sob that forced its way out. His captain was crying, and Renarin had glory, and the world was not what it had been. “Forgotten alone, each of us, but united… we are more. I should have asked you this a long time ago…” Kaladin shifted, still against Renarin’s chest but less helpless. “How are you, really?”

A warmth lit Renarin from chest to cheek, and he wished he were a Listener to hum a Rhythm of this feeling. “The best I have been in my life,” he said, “but how are you, Captain?”

Kaladin’s face was wet, but the tears were slowing. He gave a crooked smile. “Terrible,” he said, “full of nothing but guilt and questions.”

“Ah, yes,” Renarin said, affecting a contorted and wise face. “A familiar affliction.”

The smile widened. Thank the Almighty and the One both. “So what is it you then recommend?”

He let the affectation fall and held Kaladin closer. “Slaying monsters,” said Renarin, “but not for you. Your monsters are all slain for this day. I have asked the wrong question, I think.” Renarin ran his fingers through Kaladin’s tangled curls. “Does that hurt? That’s— that’s not the question.”

“I like it. Ask your question.”

Kaladin wasn’t crying anymore, and Renarin breathed another prayer to everyone listening who wasn’t Odium. “What do you want?”

Silence, and fear took hold of Renarin. Then Kaladin, with achingly gentle touch, took Renarin’s hand.

“I want what you have,” he said, “despite what it is. I want to _heal_. I want to rid my mind of battles and slaughter and think only of caring for those who need it. No more thoughts of who it is right to kill, of what it is right to kill _for_. I want you to be the Windrunner, so I could be you. If I could heal, the questions would end. The work would be clear and simple.”

“You would take on corruption,” Renarin said, not sure he had heard correctly. “You would rather be an abomination than— than— than Kaladin Stormblessed?”

“I would rather be a healer than a leader, and I would rather be anyone but Kaladin Stormblessed.” He released Renarin’s hands, and they slowly strayed back to his imitation of Adolin. “I don’t know that corruption matters, I don’t know that I care of labels and sides anymore. If Odium can mean Meridas Amaram and Dalinar Kholin both? Let me care only to protect and to heal. I’m tired of anger, Renarin. I’m tired of death.”

“I can’t— I can’t do that,” Renarin said. He stopped, waiting to be sure Glys wouldn’t correct him. That would be nice. “I would, though. You could be the healer. I revel in death.”

“Is it simple to you?”

“Yes.” Was it supposed to be? He didn’t think it was. “I was protecting my brother…”

“That’s the simplest thing there is.” Kaladin put a hand to Renarin’s cheek. “That’s how I started out.”

“Why are you touching me so much? It isn’t very Alethi.”

“You touched me first.”

“You were crying, so I…” Renarin paused. “Has my hair gone all black, then? As a foreigner I hardly need to explain why I’m not being very Alethi.”

He laughed, brushing the tips of his fingers on Renarin’s black-and-gold hair before pulling the hand back. “I’m tired and I don’t know who I am. I’m talking too much and touching too much but I can’t find it in me to stop. I want…”

Kaladin stopped, suddenly. He leaned into Renarin, hands moving to his waist.

The kiss was too long, and not long enough.

“I want that,” Kaladin said, nose still brushed against Renarin’s.

“Oh,” Renarin said. “Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

He pushed Kaladin against the wall and kissed him again.


End file.
